Equipment

Diesel Engines

When the covers were pulled off the 2016 Nissan TITAN XD full-size pickup at the 2015 North American International Auto Show earlier this month, ti was also the debut of the all-new Cummins 5.0L V-8 Turbo Diesel engine.

Achates Power, the developer of modern two-stroke, opposed-piston engines, says it has secured another contract with a leading global original-equipment manufacturer. The company now has five customers for whom it is developing variations of its designs.

Consumption of diesel exhaust fluid across North America has been rising in recent years and is set to hit a milestone of one billion gallons by 2019, according to the newly published DEF Market Dynamics Report by Integer Research.

Multiple lawsuits against Caterpillar for chronic failures of its 2007-2010 ACERT diesels go beyond heavy trucks, and include school buses and motor coaches as well as at least one marine engine, according to news reports, while a wide variety of problems have been chronicled in discussion groups on the Internet.

The Truck Renting and Leasing Association reports progress on an industry effort to fix the District of Columbia’s move to ban certain diesel engines. TRALA, speaking for a coalition that includes American Trucking Associations as well as local trucking interests, said the D.C. government is willing to rewrite a budget bill that would in effect ban the engines.

The nation’s diesel engine lobby is pointing to the release of new research that shows diesel emissions are often wrongly blamed for causing too much pollution and diseases, while recent efforts to curb them is often misunderstood.

It calls for cutting all funding for the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act from $20 million dollars this year to zero in 2015. The cut is part of more than $6 billion in budget reductions proposed for the new fiscal year, which starts at the beginning of October.

A new study says the reduction in emissions in the newest clean-diesel engines has exceeded the amount required by law. The study by the Coordinating Research Council in cooperation with the Health Effects Institute highlights the low-emissions performance of the new generation of clean diesel technology manufactured starting in 2010.

The Diesel Technology Forum's Allen Schaeffer, executive director for the organization, highlighted the importance of diesel engines, fuels and equipment in global commerce and international trade during World Trade Week.